I was
therefore eager to go on. But this wide jump was a dreadful obstacle.
At length, because of the dangers already behind me, I determined to
venture against those that might be ahead, jumped and landed well, but
with so little to spare that I more than ever dreaded being compelled to
take that jump back from the lower side. Stickeen followed, making
nothing of it, and we ran eagerly forward, hoping we were leaving all
our troubles behind. But within the distance of a few hundred yards we
were stopped by the widest crevasse yet encountered. Of course I made
haste to explore it, hoping all might yet be remedied by finding a
bridge or a way around either end. About three-fourths of a mile
upstream I found that it united with the one we had just crossed, as I
feared it would. Then, tracing it down, I found it joined the same
crevasse at the lower end also, maintaining throughout its whole course
a width of forty to fifty feet. Thus to my dismay I discovered that we
were on a narrow island about two miles long, with two barely possible
ways of escape: one back by the way we came, the other ahead by an
almost inaccessible sliver-bridge that crossed the great crevasse from
near the middle of it!
After this nerve-trying discovery I ran back to the sliver-bridge and
cautiously examined it.
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